Fire & Blood (A Targaryen History #1) - George R.R. Martin Page 0,30

his daughter Rhaena in marriage to her brother Aegon, heir to the Iron Throne.

The princess was eighteen, the prince fifteen. They had been close since childhood, playmates when young. Though Aegon had never claimed a dragon of his own, he had ascended into the skies more than once with his sister, on Dreamfyre. Lean and handsome and growing taller every year, Aegon was said by many to be the very image of his grandsire at the same age. Three years of service as a squire had sharpened his prowess with sword and axe, and he was widely regarded as the best young lance in all the realm. Of late, many a young maiden had cast her eye upon the prince, and Aegon was not indifferent to their charms. “If the prince is not wed,” Grand Maester Gawen wrote the Citadel, “His Grace may soon have a bastard grandchild to contend with.”

Princess Rhaena had many a suitor as well, but unlike her brother she gave encouragement to none of them. She preferred to spend her days with her siblings, her dogs and cats, and her newest favorite, Alayne Royce, daughter to the Lord of Runestone…a plump and homely girl, but so cherished that Rhaena sometimes took her flying on the back of Dreamfyre, just as she did her brother Aegon. More often, though, Rhaena took to the skies by herself. After her sixteenth nameday, the princess declared herself a woman grown, “free to fly where I will.”

And fly she did. Dreamfyre was seen as far away as Harrenhal, Tarth, Runestone, Gulltown. It was whispered (though never proved) that on one of these flights Rhaena surrendered the flower of her maidenhead to a lowborn lover. A hedge knight, one story had it; others named him a singer, a blacksmith’s son, a village septon. In light of these tales, some have suggested that Aenys might have felt a need to see his daughter wed as soon as possible. Regardless of the truth of that surmise, at eighteen Rhaena was certainly of an age to marry, three years older than her mother and father had been when they were wed.

Given the traditions and practices of House Targaryen, a match between his two eldest children must have seemed the obvious course to King Aenys. The affection between Rhaena and Aegon was well-known, and neither raised any objection to the marriage; indeed, there is much to suggest that both had been anticipating just such a partnership since they had first played together in the nurseries of Dragonstone and the Aegonfort.

The storm that greeted the king’s announcement took them all by surprise, though the warning signs had been plain enough for those with the wit to read them. The Faith had condoned, or at the very least ignored, the marriage of the Conqueror and his sisters, but it was not willing to do the same for their grandchildren. From the Starry Sept came a blistering condemnation, denouncing the marriage of brother to sister as an obscenity. Any children born of such a union would be “abominations in the sight of gods and men,” the Father of the Faithful proclaimed, in a declaration that was read by ten thousand septons throughout the Seven Kingdoms.

Aenys Targaryen was infamous for his indecision, yet here, faced with the fury of the Faith, he stiffened and grew stubborn. The Dowager Queen Visenya advised him that he had but two choices; he must abandon the marriage and find new matches for his son and daughter or mount his dragon, Quicksilver, to fly to Oldtown to burn the Starry Sept down around the High Septon’s head. King Aenys did neither. Instead he simply persisted.

On the day of the wedding, the streets outside the Sept of Remembrance—built atop the Hill of Rhaenys, and named in honor of the Dragon’s fallen queen—were lined with Warrior’s Sons in gleaming silver armor, making note of each of the wedding guests as they passed by, afoot, ahorse, or in litters. The wiser lords, perhaps expecting that, had stayed away.

Those who did come to bear witness saw more than a wedding. At the feast afterward, King Aenys compounded his misjudgment by granting the title Prince of Dragonstone to his presumptive heir, Prince Aegon. A hush fell over the hall at those words, for all present knew that title had hitherto belonged to Prince Maegor. At the high table, Queen Visenya rose and stalked from the hall without the king’s leave. That night she mounted Vhagar and returned to

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